Return Jonathan Meigs

Return Jonathan Meigs (28 December 1740-28 January 1823) was a colonel of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Meigs commanded American light infantry, and his May 1777 "Meigs Raid" on Sag Harbor was commended by the Continental Congress, which bestowed a ceremonial sword upon him. After the war, he assisted in the colonization of Ohio, and he spent his last years as an Indian agent to the Cherokee.

American Revolutionary War
Return Jonathan Meigs was born on 28 December 1740 in Middletown, Connecticut, and he was a merchant in his youth. In 1774, he became a captain in the local militia, and he was appointed Major of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment at the start of the American Revolutionary War. Meigs accompanied Benedict Arnold on his invasion of British Canada in the winter of 1775, being captured at the Battle of Quebec on New Year's Eve. He was paroled on 16 May 1776 by Guy Carleton, the British governor of Quebec, as Meigs had been kind to Carleton's chief engineer Captain Law when he was in rebel hands. On 10 January 1777, Meigs was formally exchanged, and he became a Major of the 3rd Connecticut Regiment from the Connecticut Line. In May 1777, Meigs led a daring raid on Sag Harbor with 220 troops on a fleet of 13 whaleboats, crossing the Long Island Sound from Connecticut to Long Island in New York and attacking the British fleet. 12 ships were burnt down and 90 prisoners taken, all without the loss of a single soldier. Meigs was awarded a ceremonial sword in gratitude for the "Meigs Raid", and he would go on to lead light infantry at the Battle of Stony Point in 1779. On 1 January 1781, he retired when the number of Connecticut regiments was decreased on the orders of Congress.

Frontier
Following the Revolution's end in 1783, Meigs became a pioner, leading a 1788 expedition to the Northwest Territory in Ohio. From 1799 to 1801, he was a member of the territorial legislature of Ohio after helping in its colonization, and in 1801 he headed to Tennessee to become the Indian agent for the Cherokee. Meigs would serve as an Indian agent to the Cherokee until his death in 1823 from pneumonia, and his son Return J. Meigs Jr. would later be Governor of Ohio.